Disclaimer: The ideas and concepts used in BLEACH belong to Tite Kubo, as well as any regular characters. Most of the characters in this story belong to me. Thank you.
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Natsumo was busy leading the line of guards in the heartless slaughter of Hollows and all their ilk that came crawling over the wall and charging through the gate. Her powerful gauntlets made quick work of her enemies, smashing them into spraying, bloodied, spinning bodies that faded off into that ethereal darkness. Already she was deep in fighting.
She vaulted over a short Hollow, grabbing and crushing its skull as she went into the air and made a rapid dash of punches at an airborne Hollow. Once she landed on the ground her punches materialized and the Hollow flew away from the force, crashing near another group of shinigami that finished it off.
"She's amazing!" a shinigami said, looking at Natsumo's horde of swarming, fight-thirsty Hollows. Natsumo didn't waste any of her energy. She punched and back-handed the Hollows at her front and at her sides, clutching their thrown punches and kicks between her studded forearms and snapping their arms with incredible ease. She would wind up a punch over her shoulder, step in and deliver it. The force instantly blew a hole through the Hollow or split its mask and blew the mysterious spiritual substance within to smithereens. Natsumo snapped her head around and stopped an incoming punch with one arm, keeping the other tightly wound up with her eyes glaring wide and her lips pursing with rage.
"HAAAAAHHH!!!!!" she screamed, stepping in and blowing the Hollow's body to pieces. Her destructive force exhausted her. She was breathing far too hard without a break and working too hard to be safe. More Hollows kept attacking. She clapped her hands together and formed one of her translucent spheres between them. She compressed it until the tips of her fingers caged it in and the rumbling force shook the ground around her feet. "SUIHOU-HOU!!!" She shot her hands forward, dug her feet into the dirt and flashed out her palms. The bubble exploded in front of her, obliterating the nearest Hollows and blasting the others away. Her arms were becoming heavy already and she used the short opportunity to rest and gather her strength to keep fighting.
No good she thought. I'm done for if I have to keep fighting like this. Why can't Telly help out on the front lines? Her release is our biggest ace aside from Lady Unohana herself! The Hollows were stirring once again. They got up and shook off their pain and wounds and stared Natsumo down once more. She shrunk back and took up her heavy arms once again, like she was ready to take them on. Obviously, from the shaking in her knees and the nervous demeanor on her face, she was certainly not ready to continue the fight.
"WAHOOO!!!" shouted a young and rambunctious voice. Charging in from the side with a sling full of sharpened metal javelins at his back was Katana Netami. Crafted through carefully preserved kido, Katana took one of the spears in his hand and made a powerful toss. Once it hit a Hollow it expanded as a cylinder and blew the monster apart. Netami threw the rest as he ran, killing off most of the larger and more cumbersome Hollows while the nimble, sharp-clawed and fang-toothed ones remained to charge at him. Netami took up his sword to them, cut the arms from one, cut the chest of another and then vaulted over one and spun in the air to splits its mask from behind, all before landing in a skid next to Natsumo.
"Nice night for a stroll" Natsumo said, panting.
"Great night for a fight!" Netami agreed. The hollows remaining glared their way and began a merciless charge.
"Kido Squad!" a man shouted from up on the roof of the manor. The Hollows turned to him and saw a line of guards, Telly in the center, all with the same pose. On one knee, one arm aimed straight forward and the other arm drawn back with a blinding light radiating from the pointed tips of their fingers. Telly's sight was lined up straight at a Hollow smaller than the rest, a harder target to hit for certain, but she still kept her hands steady, aiming right for the cresting strip between its glowing eyes. The man standing behind the center, a man wearing a small crown of cloth wrapped around a red spire, a Buddhist white silk around his chest instead of black robes and pants tied at his wooden-sandaled feet, rose up a thick arm and then threw it down. He raged his commands through a face with such sharp angles and features that it cut the air around him as he yelled. "FIRE!!!"
"Biting force of a hundred dragons!" the kido squad announced in unison. "Light of the Moon! Tsukihari!!!" A magnificent array of shining white blasts lit up the night. Once the glare died down Natsumo glanced at the Hollows. The smallest one with lashing, razor-sharp claws was pierced through the center of its mask by a silver ribbon of energy. Once all the light finally died the slowly-moving bodies of the Hollows erupted into mists of blackened energy. Telly immediately stood up from the line and pressed her hand into the inside of her elbow, flexing the other arm and flipping the dead Hollows an angry bird.
"HELL YEAAAAHHH!!!" Telly roared, looking masculine and angry. "Screw you, you ugly sons of bastards! I'm Telly and I kicked your asses!!!" Telly continued shouting and hooting while Natsumo looked up in a flat embarrassment. Netami tapped his sword to his shoulder and grinned.
"Nice to see such uninhibited feelings in her" he said to Natsumo. "Why don't you bust loose like that more often? Afraid of messing your hair?"
Flippant little moron Natsumo thought. Her eye twitched a bit. She straightened the bun of her hair and turned to Netami, as sweet and gently lady-like as she could. Her eyes even widened and sparkled, giving a feminine light to the bloody night. "Oh, all girls can be like that, sweety! Don't forget it!" Netami was speechless...and a little frightened. Natsumo returned to her regular, stern face and turned forward. The Hollows, for the most part, were defeated and the battle was basically over. Those left were being rapidly overwhelmed by shinigami force and were quick on the road to destruction. Natsumo turned to her left and saw, a far distance away, one Hollow with a large back and larger tail breathing fire at a group of guards.
"I'm on that!" Netami said as he flash-stepped across the grounds to help fight. Telly jumped down and landed behind Natsumo with a victorious grin of happiness on her face.
"Cheer up, girl!" Telly said, patting Natsumo hard on the back. "We've won again! Of course, I think you helped out too, but mostly it was us..."
"Telly" Natsumo said, her voice dreadful. She turned with wide eyes to Telly, a deeply frightened look on her face. "Where are the rest of them?" she asked. Telly looked at her strangely, then she felt it. The incoming presence. All the Hollows they had just faced just barely equaled to this enormous force that charged at them. A wave of pressure that shook the grass like an ominous wind.
The shadow of a cloud passed over the moon on a cloudless night and the pressure entered far too familiar territory...
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They came with a crash and stood in the rubble for a moment. The dust settled like a nervous fog to the floor and out they stepped. Three tenacious, ferocious demons with skull heads. Three Hollows had broken through the roof of the main hallway leading to the orphanage wing of the Unohana estate. The guards were too slow in stopping their assault from the air, and now they played a desperate game to catch up with their lost track.
"Halt!" one guard called. He ran straight for the tall, winged figure that stood nearly up to the busted ceiling. The mighty Hollow turned its head slowly to register the incoming guards but left the task to his underlings.
"I've got it" the raspy one said, climbing over the rubble to rush the guards down.
"Up, down, forward forward and duck" the humanoid one said. The guards ignored all their Hollow banter and attacked. The first attack came from above, then the other guard sliced from below. Both advanced with stabs that the thick-armed Hollow flipped over fully. It landed behind them just as they ducked. It gave its arms a simply, quick jerk backwards, barely contacting the guards, and they were sent tumbling swiftly forward. The tall Hollow raised a leg and caught on under its sharp taloned foot while the other just rolled to a stop and started bleeding.
"Weaklings, all" it boomed, glaring down at the petrified guard. The large-armed, raspy-voiced Hollow walked forward, a cocky sway in its hips that turned in rhythm with the huge arms it dragged through the air. The moonlight revealed its white body, its two huge forearms ending in perpetually knotted fists and wrists encircled with thick, metallic growths like chainless shackles. It's face was monstrous in form, with a single daring horn jutting out from its forehead. The spot around that protrusion was surrounded by a crown of tiny sharp bumps. Its eyes were so evilly carved that no other emotion aside from the lust of murder could shine out and its teeth were all sharpened to a razor point, long and thick for the ripping of flesh.
It's hole resided at its lower abdomen where its body thinned and its slender, defined legs began. "What fun" it rasped. "I haven't had a good fight in a long, long time."
"It's been nights" the human one said. "For you, I guess that would be too long. I'm surprised you survived a single night without fighting..."
"No you're not" the horned one said, opening its mouth wide to rasp as loud as it could at him. The humanoid one turned. It's mask was perfectly human. Not a single monstrous deformity or external structure to speak of, though its hole was placed oddly as its left eye in a perfectly round shape. The right eye had the sloped sadness of a human's skull. It's body, unlike the others, was a deep and dark violet and had spots of black circles all over it. Around its waist it wore the tattered mantle left behind from shinigami long since slain, which it used to catch its posture with its hands, stowing them in the sides like pockets, and led itself forward in a long slouch.
"You're right" it said. "I'm never really surprised..."
"We must go..." the tall, dominating one said. Its wings of feathers folded into its sides and the feathers all disappeared. It's huge bony arms were folded into its sides with the tips jutting out behind it. It pressed down hard until it heard a crack and then began striding forward. "Chupra Loco is waiting..."
"He's been waiting" the humanoid said "for too long already. Nearly a full night."
"Silence Vicente" the large-armed Hollow demanded. Vicente only marched straight ahead with his hands folded into his mantle.
"You're about to get scolded" Vicente said, turning to the Hollow it warned, "Margarita Moon."
"Enough from you both" the tall one demanded.
"Yes, Garuda" Moon said with a bow. Vicente just walked, face straight, while Moon sneered at him with a villainous glowing of its eyes. Finally they reached the end of the long hall, killed two more guards and entered the children's ward of the estate, the Unohana Orphanage, a home for the children of lost soldiers and the beaten men and women abandoned by their own fallen empires. The philanthropic wing that earned Unohana such a prestigious name. These three Hollows, with Moon's arm blowing down the door, entered and stirred a panic throughout the ward.
"Kill all interlopers" Garuda demanded. Moon dashed forward, disappearing into thin air just before a guard, then came out from behind with a kick. The guard went staggering to the side and right into Moon's terribly solid arm, going unconscious in an instant.
"Attack!" the guard captain commanded. A troop of sword-wielding men clad in metal armor charged Vicente who just glared at them and slouched ever downward. The first few swipes were total misses, going nowhere near the intended target. Vicente weaved his way through all their attempted attacks, breathing steadily and leaning radically away from their sword strokes.
"What a predictable bunch" Vicente said. He took one arm from his mantle, one arm from its lazy slot, and used it to crush each sword with a quick and brutal snap. When it was over he held five blades in his hand and let them fall to the floor, leaving five men with broken swords defenseless against the towering force of Garuda. "You announced your shots too early...." Garuda opened its fanged maw behind Vicente and spread his wings. A terrible pressure went out with his booming hiss of air and sapping the strength from the guard's legs. They were all floored at once, their consciousness sapped, and vulnerable to the terrible mouth of Vicente...
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Finally, it seemed the fighting was over. The Hollows that charged the mansion were slain and the guards celebrated their victory with their shouts and howls to the night sky. Netami, of course, led them in the howling as he wore the skinned pelt of a fur-covered Hollow across his shoulders as a trophy.
"HAAAAOOOOOUUUUUU!!!!!!" he roared, leading his other excited brethren to cry with him. He tapped his sheathed sword to his shoulder and looked out to the shinigami, all steaming in the humid air from their dire fighting. He picked out a girl with delicate eyes, hair that held tight to her head while curling up at her neck, and robes splattered with blood and jumped over to her. "Nice fighting, right?" he said, moving in close. She grinned and moved into his chest with a hungry little grin.
"I could keep going" she said suggestively. Netami flicked his tongue and held her tight to his chest. A bell tolled somewhere deep within the mansion. A bell made from strong iron, hung with blessed ropes and amplified with a resonating sound pressure that echoed far into the distance. An emergency that startled all the guards, mercenaries and soldiers that dared to hear it. Netami and his captivated battle bride were shaken by its tone but curious to its purpose. Many guards took up their swords and began a mad and panicked rush for the manor's further wing.
"The orphanage is under attack!" a man shouted as the shinigami darted across the grounds. Netami drew away from his girl and looked after the advancing warriors. She looked worried, waiting for new, for orders to help her move from her panic.
"Hey" Netami said, catching her attention. He jerked his head in that direction, she nodded, and together the flash-ran off and away. This ain't good, I take it. A bunch of defenseless kids are the last things we want to lose around here. Damn! DAMN! We really need to hurry, don't we!? "Pick it up, dammit! Slow-asses! COME ON! RUUUNNN!!!" Netami had instantly taken hold of the situation and sped the operation up drastically. Under his charismatic command the fleet of shinigami reached the shattered kido barrier around the orphanage wing and stormed the premise. Netami, with his girl beside him, took to the highest level where he luckily stumbled upon the ruins of slaughtered soldiers.
"Holy...." Netami began. His curse was cut short by his own disbelief. Three Hollows stood in a room devoid of any rational soul. All that remained of the soldiers had been devoured and the final piece of their existence was hanging from the flat teeth of Vicente's mouth, a whole arm left undevoured yet.
"I saw you coming" Vicente said, turning to them and chomping the arm down, "so I ate as fast as I could." The rest of the shinigami finally came up to the floor. Some through the proper stairwell and others through the open windows.
"The kids downstairs are fine" one shouted "now let's kill these godless beasts before they can change that!"
"Oh?" Moon rasped. In a flash it was in front of that man, its wide fingers placed carefully around the shinigami's slender shoulders. "There are more souls below us?" The shinigami was paralyzed by fear. Moon gripped hard and leaned in to open its mouth and breath out a breath of a thousand-fold deaths. "Thanks for the tip!" and with that it swung its arms down and tore two holes in the shinigami, one at each detached shoulder. Moon stepped away as the shinigami bled out and fell flat over. "Vicente! Another snack for you!"
"Knew it..." Vicente said as he paced lazily over. "It was a good idea for me not to eat a lot before coming here. I knew I'd get a big feast..."
"ATTACK!!!!" Netami ordered. The shinigami, still high from their previous victory, charged forward and attacked at full force. Moon blocked the attacks with its heavy arms and swung the shinigami away, though and into walls. More and more guards kept coming in from all over the estate, ready to defend the wing with their lives. Garuda ignored the squabbling and placed the tip of its long, powerful wing on the wing door. It was bolted shut and protected by a powerful barrier kido.
"A useless effort" he said in his booming tenor.
"Stop the huge one!" a shinigami shouted.
"We can't hit this one!" another called that was fighting Vicente. Vicente sighed, weaved his body through the attacks and delivered a mighty punch into that shinigami's face. The warrior was silence and the rest around Vicente retreated while the monster rose its fist to its mouth and licked the blood that was on his knuckles with a slimy, black tongue.
"Of course not" Vicente said. "You're fighting so plainly. It's hard not to see what you're doing..."
"CRAM IT!" Netami roared. He came in, his sword in both hands, and made a desperate chop for Vicente's neck. The Hollow ducked down, stepped backward and threw his back into Netami's chest. The pain was incredible. What was more incredible was the flat expression the Hollow kept as it slowly returned to its original position while Netami rolled across the floor.
"KATANA!" the girl shouted. "Are you alright!?" Netami stabbed his sword to the floor to get up and prepared to charge in when a sudden rush of danger coursed through his body. He made a desperate leap to the side and just barely avoided a razor-sharp blast of icy wind that blew through the wall and straight at Garuda.
"Accla Escudo"Garuda said, His wing was suddenly bursting with pluming feathers, soft and light, which absorbed the ripping wind like a cool breeze. From that stirring, frozen hold a figure appeared, followed by the moving, liquid shadow of a man that moved through the foggy screen with a flexible thing between his hands behind his back. That figure straightened up into a fully man shape and the weapon behind his back suddenly became a sharp, short blade. The other, one with a mantle of robes around his waist and a flittering tail behind his head, stood tall and proud as the fog from the attack cleared and crossed his powerful arms.
Garuda lowered his wing to look through his red eyes at the newcomers. They weren't as weak as these assaulting guards. They were much stronger, completely different creatures. Vicente kept his lethargic gaze fixated on the new pair and sighed. Moon kept a wide breadth of distance between itself and the shinigami fighting it as they all waited for one of these glorious things to speak. Finally, the one braving the cold with a bare chest and a bare head, gave the first daring sound of speech. An arrogant, tactless, gaudy exclamation that regardless shook the hearts of Hollow and shinigami alike. He curled a grin, bared his fangs and scoffed
"Tch!"
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"Hehehe..." Carroll chuckled as he stomped through the unguarded halls. "Just as planned...It's all gone just as planned!" He sneered with an impossible sense of victory, a villain on his gait of unbreakable tenacious charisma. He marched on and checked a room. No one was in. He slammed the door shut and continued his arrogant march. "I played those fools like a gaggle full of sheepish little...frogs! Squishy frogs that I step on and kill with a single twist of me steely heel!" Again he stopped, checked a room with no one inside, and continued on. "Those Hollows got played too. Of course they'll get taken down, but I'll still get my prize!" He checked one more room.
"AAAAAGH!!!!" he raged. "Where is that bitch!? How well can she hide!?" A sudden ripple of energy reached him. His face returned to that villainous sneer and he went straight through the halls for the garden. With a blast of force he threw open the doors and saw, right in the middle on her stone bench, Rei Unohana with her sword held softly in her folded hands. She looked up at Carroll with stunning eyes, sending her sense of betrayal as forcefully as she could, hoping it would register with him as the same nefarious force that he had initially given her. He felt it, her broken pride and shattered trust, and it made him smile. She stood up, keeping her sword in her hands steadily.
"You aimed to kill me" Rei said "for wealth? Who would want me dead?"
"I never asked" Carroll said. "I only know that there are people who want other people dead, and when I tell them that I can help them achieve their twisted goals they come flocking to me! That's what being free is about, being able to do anything, never being held back by something as fragile as diplomacy or politics! That's the Manzenryuu! It's my entire life!!!" Rei just gave him the same pitied glare, but this time it was her own pity that she sent out.
An explosive force! Carroll was stunned and held under a shaking wave of white. Rei's coat blended into the scenery she warped perfectly. Her sword made a glowing halo in front of her body and then was brought back into praying hands. She did not state its name. It was unnecessary, after all. Now she simply had her glowing white sword in hand. Carroll finally freed himself from her grip just as she gripped her sword at her side and rushed in. He drew his own out and slashed down as she approached. She slid to the side and then slid up, stopping her piteous face inches from his.
"I would think" she began " a truly strong warrior wouldn't try to distract me to kill me. If you were strong, and capable, and worth paying, you could ride up to anyone on that beaten steed of yours and just issue a straight challenge. Why bother dealing with darker forces?" Carroll made a grab for her face, but she fled and stopped just outside his range, her sword poised down. Carroll took his sword up and started spinning it rapidly overhead. He had an evil grin on his face, a brazen pride in the disgraceful character that Rei had drawn.
"It's just my way" Carroll said. "Nothing more. Nothing less!" Rei glared at him. Her anger was awakened and now she posed seriously. One leg forward, both hands together, sword pointed up at his face, eyes locked to his motions. Rei prepared to fight him for all he was worth. "Mutilate! Negroarpoar!!!" His black spear came into existence, and with its spinning force he made his first attack by making a wide swing of its barbed hilt. Rei simply jumped over it, drew her sword back near her shoulder, and swooped in for a single, fatal blow. She swung early and hit the spear as Carroll jerked it back and stabbed up at her. He grinned and held her up in the air for a bit. Once she was on the ground the true blocking battle began.
"It's useless, you intolerable bitch!" Carroll shouted. "Each hit I strike your sword with draws away its power! My spear absorbs pure spiritual power, from anything living or unliving!!!" Rei continued blocking regardless, leaning into her sword when she caught the spear and then jumping away when she lost it to his grip. Carroll drew it back far and stepped into a stab. Rei simply dodged it. He smiled at that and swung it at her. Rei blocked it and was thrown over the brush and into a patch of long, flowery grass. Carroll charged at her across the artificial field and stabbed at her from his maximum range.
When Rei tried to advance she couldn't avoid that spear and was forced back. She was playing defensively, she had to as Carroll wouldn't let up at all. He stabbed and swiped, cutting and draining away the plants along the ground, always with that glaring grin on his sharp face. Rei couldn't let herself get pushed into a corner, and she certainly couldn't waste her time trying to close on such an opponent. She slashed her sword along the ground and threw up a cloud of grass and dirt.
"Cheap trick, Rei!" Carroll said. He retreated and waited for her to come at him again. She did not. She simply stood as the grass in the air latches itself to the dirt and flourished into a verdant patch that suspended itself for a short time before falling back down and rooting back into the ground. The air around her was glowing with life and her radiant smile gave that light such shine that Carroll forgot it was night and squinted his eyes to see.
"You hold a dark heart" Rei said, "but mine is one of light, healing. I have a Holy aura."
"Aura...?" Carroll said, only now hearing this term. "Whatever that means, it must have something to do with your inability to kill me! Come on! Try harder! The sooner you make a mistake the sooner I get to-huh?" Carroll pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. He had been insulted. Rei sheathed her sword, deactivated, and sat among the singing, glowing plants she had made with her attack. A lovely smile was on her face and she kept her eyes fixed on Carroll's face. "Are you screwing with me?" Carroll asked. Rei didn't answer. "Bitch. Are you trying to mock me!?" Rei just kept smiling. Her pressure was calm, relaxing, perfectly docile.
A shadow moved over the moon, another cloud on a cloudless night.
"I'LL KILL YOU, BITCH!!!" Carroll called as he rose his spear high over his head. Rei closed her eyes and looked away.
For once, I missed it Rei thought. A shadow from the sky fell and covered her earth with impenitrable black. Carroll froze for a moment, seeing his life already ending, and watched the perfect movement of an ideal warrior. That feeling that you're here...without it, none of us are quite right. We missed you...death. And with the heroic, arcing swing of his scythe, Shin killed Carroll and was lifted by the force of his attack, a shadow that carried up to the sky for one last time before landing back in the garden, right near Rei's own stone bench. He spun his scythe over wrist, hand and forearm, a blindingly fast blur of deadly black, then settled it with a clash on his shoulder before turning his body and looking at Rei with his lethally sharp eyes and flat expression. She stood up and grinned at him.
They both decided to ignore Carroll's dying body in favor of a greeting. Shin began. He turned up his index and middle finger on the hand that held his scythe and straightened his back a bit.
"Yo" he said. "Been a bit, hasn't it?"
"Yes" Rei said, smiling wider now, a friendly warmth between her and the cold, deadly field of Shin's presence. That warmth still carried through to him, though, as was evidence in the frosty breath he breathed.
"Damn it's cold up here" he said.
"I haven't noticed" Rei said. "Perhaps you should go inside and get warm."
"In there?" Shin said, moving to face her with his whole body. He looked down and shook his head. "It's not gonna stay warm in there for long, not if Suichi has anything to say about it."
"Is that so?" Rei said. Shin grinned at her as she smiled so warmly at him. "Well, we better get going." She said as she flash-stepped inside. Shin followed right behind, keeping a perfect pace with his scythe still out.
"What's the rush?" Shin asked. "They can't outrun death, can they?"
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Tsukihari: Moon Beam
Accla Escudo: Wing Shield (Spanish)
